The financial news that actually matters
This category covers housing market trends, property prices, affordability, rental markets, and real estate investment insights. It helps readers understand how housing decisions are influenced by economic conditions.
After a Medicaid recipient who received nursing home care or other long-term services dies, federal law requires the state Medicaid program that paid those bills to seek repayment from the person’s estate, and in many cases that estate includes a house. The mandate, written into federal law since 1993, reaches recipients who were age 55…
Long-term nursing home care can cost several hundred dollars a day, and Medicaid remains the primary payer once a resident’s own savings run out. Federal Medicaid rules generally count a home as an available resource when an applicant seeks nursing-facility coverage, which can force a sale or a lien against the property. A specific type…
A growing number of homeowners are using a legal filing called a transfer-on-death deed to steer a house directly to a named heir the moment ownership changes hands after death, sidestepping the probate court process that otherwise ties up an estate for months. The document works much like a beneficiary designation on a bank account…
A reverse mortgage lets a homeowner age 62 or older draw on home equity without a monthly payment, but Federal Housing Administration rules attach specific triggers that make the entire balance payable once the borrowing stops. Those triggers govern what happens to the property after an owner dies, sells the house, or moves out for…
For decades, many older Americans have quietly built home equity that dwarfs what they originally paid for the property when they first bought it. When that home passes to a son, daughter, or other heir after the owner’s death, the tax code treats the transfer very differently than it would treat a sale made during…
Selling an investment property usually means handing over a share of the profit to the IRS the same year the sale closes. Section 1031 of the tax code offers real estate investors, including retirees who own rental property, a legal way to postpone that bill by rolling the proceeds into another property instead of cashing…
Millions of homes, bank accounts, and vehicles in the United States are titled with a few extra words that quietly determine what happens to the property the moment one owner dies. That phrase, “joint tenants with right of survivorship,” is one of the most common ways couples and family members hold property together, and it…
A standard homeowners insurance policy covers damage from fire, wind, and many other hazards, but it excludes damage caused by flooding, regardless of whether the flood comes from a storm, an overflowing river, or a broken levee. Covering flood damage requires a separate policy, most often through the National Flood Insurance Program, and the coverage…
Falling behind on homeowners association dues can put a house at risk of foreclosure even when the mortgage payment is current and up to date. Most state laws let an HOA or condo association record a lien against a property for unpaid assessments, fines, and related charges, and once that lien is in place, the…
A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, the reverse mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration, becomes due in full the moment the last surviving borrower dies. When no heir steps forward to pay it off, refinance it, or sell the home within the allowed window, the loan servicer forecloses and the property is sold at auction…
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